Disclaimer: All characters are unfortunately property of ABC. No copyright infringement is intended – for non-commercial entertainment purposes only.

Author's Note: First off, I have to thank my amazing beta Shli. She's awesome. This story is going to be a series of one-shots based on each episode of season 7. This chapter takes place after 7.01. Hope you all enjoy it. As always, I appreciate your feedback and reviews :)

Owen looked back at his reflection in the mirror as he dried off his face and smiled, unable to contain his unbridled happiness at the sight of his platinum wedding ring flickering in the light. It never got old. Married. He still couldn't believe that Cristina was really his wife.

After spending two weeks in Fiji, courtesy of his remorseful would-be best man and now twisted brother-in-law, they had finally returned last night to the dreary rain of Seattle. He still lamented having to leave their luxurious beachside bungalow to return to work. The past two weeks had been the best of the life. The only thing better than their honeymoon was the fact that he had come back married to the love of his life – something he still hadn't stopped smiling about.

As he stepped out of the bathroom, his breath instantly hitched and his heart sunk in his chest. His wife was still sitting on their bed in her pajamas, nonchalantly flipping through her bridal magazines. A wave of sobering sadness hit him. He silently cursed himself for deluding himself into believing that she was getting better. He should have known better.

True, it was out of character for her to want to willingly go away for a honeymoon, but he had hoped that their time away from the hospital might do her some good and that she might be able to finally relax. After a couple days, it seemed that was the case; Cristina had begun to relax, and laugh, and even talk about surgery. And she had never willingly talked about surgery since that horrific day. So he had thought that she was starting to heal. Clearly, he was wrong. I should have known better.

He quietly walked into the room, throwing his shirt on. "Hey…you coming?" he softly asked.

"No," she replied, her voice flat and emotionless. She flipped another page.

Owen walked over to the bed and sat down next to her. "You sure?"

"Yes," she said without looking up, a single tear falling slowly down her face.

Owen felt his heart breaking for her. He slowly reached out, not wanting to startle her, and wiped the tear away. With his hand still lingering on her face, he gently cupped her face and tried to get her to look into his eyes, but she kept her eyes glued to the magazine's pages.

"Cristina," he whispered, stroking her hair, begging her to look up at him.

However, despite his efforts, she kept her eyes downcast and resumed leafing through the pages. "I'm not going in. I'm not…" she trailed off, the silent tears coming more steadily now. She finally looked up. The look in her red-rimmed eyes was a look he was unfortunately all too familiar with. All he wanted in that moment was to take all of her pain away, but he didn't know how.

Owen automatically reached for her, holding her close to his chest and stroked her back. "Shhh…" he whispered in her ear.

"I don't want to go," she painfully whispered back. "I can't go back in there."

"Shh…it's okay. Yes, you can."

Cristina shook her head against his shoulder. "No, I can't. I can't…"

"Yes, you can." Owen pulled back so he could look in her eyes, silently pleading for her to look back up at him. Finally, her eyes met his. "Cristina, yes you can." He nodded with a slight smile. "You can."

She glanced away again, sadly shaking her head.

Undeterred, he continued, trying a new strategy, "You don't have to go in an OR today. You can just work with me in the pit if you want. I'll be there with you the whole day."

Cristina looked back up at him. He could tell that she was torn between his offer and spending the day with her unnecessary magazines. He reached out to stroke the curls he loved so much. "Just come to work with me today."

Her gaze returned back to her magazines, and she flipped another page.

"Don't make me have to work with Kepner all day. She follows me around with a red notebook. It's…odd." While she didn't look up, his words caused her lips to curl into a ghost of a smile. He smiled back, happy with himself that he seemed to have broken through. "Save me?"

Cristina smiled and looked up, letting out a little laugh at his lame, pleading expression. Whatever it takes, he thought.

After a moment, she gave a little nod. "Okay."

"Okay," Owen whispered back, kissing her temple. "You get dressed, and I'll make breakfast."

"Pancakes?"

"Whatever you want," he replied, with a smile. With one last glance back to the bedroom to make sure that she was indeed getting ready, he walked into the kitchen, hopeful that maybe they had just made their first step to her getting better.

...

A week had passed and the only change that had occurred was that Cristina had replaced her bridal magazines with decorating ones. Despite Owen and Meredith's encouragements, she still showed no signs of wanting to go near an OR ever again. As the days passed by, Owen became increasingly impatient with Dr. Perkins and his "so-called" methods as he watched his wife silently suffer.

Finally, this afternoon he couldn't stand it any longer. Teddy's new squeeze or not, Owen had walked into the conference room and had told Perkins exactly what he thought of his "therapy." When the trauma counselor had tried to defend his methods, Owen had told him that he could go screw himself (in so many words) and then had immediately gone to Dr. Wyatt's office to schedule an appointment. Cristina didn't need surgical clearance; she needed help. So he was going to take her to the one person that he knew could help her, the one person that he knew she'd talk to.

One successful session later, Owen found himself side-by-side with Cristina in front of a scrub room door with a simple set of instructions. No inane three-word sentences written on a piece of paper this time. Instead, just a simple instruction: walk inside the scrub room.

Wyatt had wanted Cristina to try it herself, but once Cristina had pleaded with him to not leave her, it would have taken an act of God to separate him from her side. Initially, when they had left the therapist's office, Cristina had wanted to immediately come down and get it over with. However, after several unplanned, meandering visits to the pit, his office, the cafeteria, the vent, the roof, and the hospital's bridge, Owen had taken it upon himself to make a little unplanned detour of his own to a small out-patient scrub room on their way to tour the Dermatology waiting room.

Cristina must have realized what he was planning because her steady steps instantly halted and she froze in the hallway.

He looked back at once. "It's okay. We'll just walk in there and then walk right out."

"We can just do it tomorrow. Why do we have to do it today? We can do it tomorrow," she nervously mumbled, her eyes frantically scanning for an exit.

Owen took a step back to meet her and took her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Just one step."

Cristina looked down and bit her lip.

"Just one. And then, we'll go right out. I promise."

He waited for a moment for her response. He knew exactly what she was feeling and going through: the unspeakable terror and anxiety of going back to the place where her trauma occurred could be absolutely suffocating. He would give anything to switch places with her right now. Anything. However, now all he could do was wait and hope that she would let him help her this way. Finally, she let out a shaky breath and gave him a slight nod.

Owen nodded back, giving her hand another squeeze. As he opened the door, she balked once again.

"It's okay," he said, taking a step inside.

She watched him, her breath beginning to noticeably quicken, and then tentatively followed him in.

Now that he had her in the room, he couldn't help but be proud at her courage of taking this small step, but he had no idea what to do next. Not wanting to pressure her – but not wanting her to leave the room quite yet either – he sat down on the linoleum floor.

"What are you doing?" Cristina asked, suspiciously.

I have no idea, he thought, as he patted the ground next to him, motioning for her to join him. He really hadn't thought this part through, but hopefully she'd go along with it. "Come here."

"What?"

"Sit with me," he said with an encouraging smile.

Cristina looked at him, her eyes darting to the scrub room door, clearly uncomfortable with the prospect of staying in the room one second longer. Just when he thought she was going to bolt, she took a deep, shaky breath and sat down next to him.

"Now what?" she asked.

"We just sit," he replied, rubbing her leg soothingly. Not much of a "plan," but so far it was working. She was still in the room.

An uncomfortable silence descended among them. He could feel her slightly shaking from the anxiety and tension radiated from her.

"Did I tell you that Steve called me yesterday?"

Cristina looked up at him, shaking her head, clearly perplexed by the randomness of his question.

Hey, anything to distract her, he thought. "Apparently, they went camping last weekend and they ran into a—or should I say—Steve ran into a bear."

"I told you that there were bears up there. You didn't believe me."

Owen smiled at her response. He raised his hands in mock surrender, "I stand corrected." He chuckled, before continuing. "Apparently, in the middle of the night, Steve had to go to the bathroom. It was so dark that he couldn't find the actual campsite bathrooms, so he figured that he'd just go out in the woods. So, ol' Steve walked out into the woods to get some privacy. And then the second he dropped his pants, he heard a branch snap behind him, and he turned around and there was a bear standing behind him."

A little smile appeared on Cristina's face. "Seriously?" she asked, raising her brow.

"That's what he told me. So, I guess once he saw the bear, he made a mad dash back to his tent with his pants halfway down his legs. He was in such a rush that he ran right into his tent, knocking it over – with Helen in it – all the while screaming, 'Bear! There's a bear!'"

Cristina softly laughed and Owen mentally high-fived himself for remembering the story. He continued, "So Helen wakes up, understandably pissed, as Steve tries to drag her out of the tent and to their car while screaming, 'Big bear! Really big bear! It's gonna eat us!' But instead of letting him take her to the car, Helen slapped Steve across the face because she thought he was sleepwalking and dreamt the whole thing up."

Cristina laughed harder, shaking her head in amusement. "That didn't happen."

"No, I swear it did. In fact, the reason he called me was because he wanted you to call his wife and tell her that there really are bears in that forest, and he wasn't making it up. Helen apparently still thinks he's full of shit."

She smiled, still laughing. "Okay. I will."

Owen smiled back, happy to just see her smile and semi-relaxed. He could feel that her shaking had finally stopped. Emboldened by his little victory, he wanted to try one more thing. "Want to try and wash your hands in the sink?"

His question instantly silenced her laughter and her tension immediately returned.

"You don't have to look in," he assured her.

Cristina nervously chewed on her lip. "I don't know."

"Just try. If you want to stop, we'll just leave. Okay?"

After a moment of contemplating his request, she took a deep breath and nodded. Owen could tell that she was trying to brave, and it nearly broke him. Before she could make a move to get up, he reached into his pocket and handed her the little box he was carrying with him.

"What is this?" she asked, opening the jewelry box to reveal a thin, silver chain.

"For your ring," he explained

Cristina looked back at him with a furrowed brow, confused.

"For when you scrub in. You can't wear your ring, so you can put it on the chain."

"But I'm not—" Cristina quickly corrected, her breath rate increasing.

"I know," he reassured her, squeezing her hand. Okay, so that was a bad idea. Nice going there, buddy. Quickly regrouping, he tried to calm her, "It's okay. We're just going to wash our hands and then we'll leave. That's it. Okay?"

He was pretty sure he had blown any opportunity of getting her to try and wash her hands, but she surprised him by quietly replying, "Okay."

He made the first move to get up and helped her up off the floor. He reached over to turn on the faucet, but quickly noticed that she was frozen in place beside him, her gaze fixed to the floor. "You okay?"

Cristina silently nodded back to him and hesitantly put her hands under the water.

Once under the steady stream, Cristina made no move to actually wash her hands, so Owen took his wife's hands into his and slowly tried to knead the tension out them as he washed them for her. He didn't want to prolong her discomfort any longer than was necessary, so he quickly went about his task. After a couple minutes, he could tell that she was at nearly her limit, so he shut off the sink and gently dried her hands. "There," he said, giving her hands another squeeze.

She gave him an appreciate smile, her gaze never venturing near the OR in front of her.

Incredibly proud of what she had accomplished today, he smiled back and said, "Okay, let's go," taking her hand once again into his and guiding her out of the room.

...

What had started as a once-off success had quickly turned into their daily routine. They would come into the rarely used scrub room, sit on the floor, talk about their respective days, wash their hands, and then leave. After six days of telling her stories, Owen had been forced to call up almost all of his friends and even interrogate Callie for all of the latest hospital gossip to ensure that he had new material to distract her with each day. Whatever it took.

Cristina turned her head and held out her hands expectantly with her silver chain held in each hand. Owen automatically took the chain and secured the clasp, but not before taking an appreciative look at the back of her neck.

With her ring secured around her neck, Cristina stood up and waited for Owen to start the faucet, which had also become part of their routine. However, this time she reached for the soap and washed her hands herself. That was a first, he thought.

"Okay, I washed my hands. Let's go."

Owen looked over at her, continuing to wash his hands, stalling. "There's no one in there."

Her eyes instantly darkened and she nervously looked down at the ground.

"It's just an empty room," he continued, taking a quick glance into the brightly lit room. Also, per routine, he went in the OR beforehand and turned on all of the lights to ensure that absolutely everything in the room was bathed in the bright light. "You can check. Just a quick look. You–"

Without preamble, Cristina looked up into the room for a second and then glanced immediately back down, her chest heaving from her nervous breathing.

"There," he said, leaning over to tenderly kiss her on her forehead. "That's all. See? No one's in there."

She silently nodded back to him, taking a deep, shaky breath.

"You don't have to worry. I'll never let anyone ever hurt you again," he whispered.

He reached over for her hand, and she grasped it with surprising strength.

"Want to go?"

"Yes," she whispered.

Owen nodded and whispered back, "Okay," giving her hand another squeeze and turned to leave the room. However before he fully turned, he spotted Cristina take another glance into the OR. He felt a surge of pride at her courage. That's my girl, he thought to himself and led them both out of the room.

...

Owen pressed the small button and felt the familiar whoosh of the air blast from the scrub room doors. He looked back, and saw Cristina visibly gulp at the open door. "It's okay. There's no one in here. It's just the two of us."

This he had made absolutely sure of, especially since they had "graduated" to an actual operating room on the surgical floor. He'd enlisted the help of his twisted sister-in-law and Derek to guard the doors to the OR and the gallery so they would have complete privacy.

He waited for Cristina to walk towards him. After a productive session with Dr. Wyatt, she'd told him that she wanted to do this today, but her heavy panting and nervous glances made him think that maybe they should wait. "You sure you want to go in?"

Cristina quickly nodded. "You first," she said, pressing herself up against the wall.

Distraught at seeing her in this much distress, Owen walked over to her and blocked her view of the OR with his body, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. "Shh…it's okay." She looked up and gave him a slight smile, but he waited until her breathing slowly returned to normal. "Hey, look at me." Her eyes locked with his. "Just watch me. You don't have to walk in. Just watch me. Okay?"

Cristina nodded, and he slowly backed away, his eyes never leaving hers. As he walked though the scrub room doors, his memory of Clark holding a gun to her head flashed before his eyes. It was something that happened every time he entered an OR since that horrible day. Not that he would tell Cristina about this yet, he'd only spoken to Dr. Wyatt about these memories. And as per her instructions, he rubbed his wedding ring between his fingers, reminding himself that she was still with him; that they had lived.

He looked back at his wife through the scrub room glance and gave her an encouraging smile, which she tentatively returned. He walked around the room, keeping a close eye on her, proud that she kept eye contact with him the entire time. After circumnavigating the OR, he walked back into the scrub room and held out his hand. "You want to come in?"

Cristina made a move to place her hand in his – but paused, unsure.

"Just one step. That's all. Then we can go right back out. And we can leave whenever you want. No one's coming in." He could tell that she was beginning to question her decision to try this, so he tried to reassure her more. "We don't have to walk in right now, either. Take as much time as you want. We can be here has long as you need."

Owen held his breath. He was pretty sure he had just oversold his case, but suddenly Cristina reached out and grabbed his hand, causing him to sigh in relief.

He paused, waiting for her make the first move towards the doors. Finally she walked by him and stepped into the OR. He smiled and gave her hand a squeeze, running his thumb against the back of her hand.

Cristina looked up and smiled as she took another step into the OR, but then quickly backed up against the wall, her breath suddenly escalating.

Owen was immediately by her side. "Shh…it's okay," he tried to reassure her. However, his simple platitudes weren't working, and he could tell that she was escalating into a full-blown panic attack, so he quickly guided her back into the scrub room.

"I can't do this," she brokenly sobbed into the nook of his neck.

He held her tighter, trying to will her demons away forever. She doesn't deserve this, he thought. "But you did. You walked in there," he said, stroking her back.

She shook her head at his observation, her tears quickly soaking his navy scrub shirt.

"You're doing great," he whispered into her hair. "Today we walked in. Tomorrow we'll walk in a little further. There's no rush. It doesn't matter how long it takes. You have a lifetime to operate. Right now, you're allowed to take as much time as you want. No one is pressuring you. I know how hard it is. How it feels like you'll never get any better. But you are getting better. You may not see it, but I can." Owen pulled back so he could look at her, wiping the tear on her cheek away with his thumb. "I'm so proud of you, Cristina."

Cristina bit her lip, bravely blinking back more tears.

"And you can take as much time as you want. I'm going to be there every step of the way with you. Okay?"

She nodded her understanding, her breath shaky in her attempt to get it under control. "I want to go now."

"Okay," Owen nodded.

She forcefully wiped her tears away, removed her wedding ring from the thin chain and jammed it back onto her finger. Without looking back, she exited the room.

...

"We look ridiculous."

Owen looked over at Cristina and laughed. It had taken a month, but they were finally in the OR, fully scrubbed in. All that was missing was a person to operate on.

"Like seriously…I can't believe you talked me into this."

"Oh, come on. We're dressed for the occasion." She raised her eyebrow and gave a knowing glance towards the empty operating table. Yep, his Cristina was back. Playing along, he added, "Now, if we were naked, then we'd be–"

"You have that fantasy, too?"

"What?"

Cristina shrugged, but not before giving him a very suggestive look. "Oh, nothing."

Well, if she was going to go there, hell, might as well go along with it, right? Why not make a good memory in the OR? "Hey, I'm all for it. We have guards at the doors."

She paused, as if she was considering the idea, but then shook her head. "No, we can't. Not that I don't want to just…Okay, so what now?"

"I return this to you," Owen said, holding out a scalpel.

Instantly sobered, Cristina made a move to take it from his hand but then pulled back. "I don't…"

"It's okay," he reassured her, placing the scalpel back on the table. He chastised himself for moving too soon. Quickly changing tactics, he jumped up on the operating table, obviously surprising her. Humor me, Cris? he thought, patting the spot next to him for her to join. She paused, giving him her patented "what the hell are you doing?" look but finally hopped up beside him.

Not knowing what else to do, they sat in silence side-by-side, until Cristina finally spoke.

"I used to love it in here. Now, I just…I can't…I…" she trailed off.

Her painful admission cut deep into him and he reached for her hand. "You will again. You're my cardio goddess," he said with a smile.

Cristina shook her head and looked down at her lap. "Not anymore," she said, sadly.

"Yes, you are. It never went away. You're still you. You're still the amazingly brilliant surgeon that you've always been. And you're still the extraordinarily brave, compassionate, and loving woman. The woman I knew – from the very first moment – I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. You didn't change. You're still you."

"Then why doesn't it feel like I'm getting better?"

"You are. Two weeks ago, you couldn't look in here. Now we're sitting on the operating table, fully scrubbed in, ready to perform surgery on Casper."

His attempt at a joke fell flat as she kept silently staring at their intertwined hands. Finally, she hesitantly asked, "I'm going to get better…right?"

"Cristina, when I first came back, I was broken and a ghost. I never thought I was going to get better, but you brought me back. You put me back together again. I'm the man I am today because of you. And I promise that I'll do whatever it takes for you to feel better again. You'll get better. I promise." He paused, looking into her eyes, willing for her to believe him. "And when you feel better you'll be right back in this OR winning more Harper Avery's than we can put on our shelf."

He waited, hoping that she believed his words.

"I don't want to be simple," she softly said, under her breath.

Owen smiled. "I don't want you to be simple either." He stroked her cheek. "Because, Cristina, you're extraordinary."

She smiled back. "Thank you."

Owen watched as Cristina glanced back down at the sharp, metal instrument sitting on the table next to him. Finally, she smiled to herself and looked back up at him, holding out her hand.

"Scalpel."

...